New chef, menu at R'side Manor

Mike Daniele, who earned high ratings as the chef-owner of Michel's Ristorante in Englewood in the 1990s and also owned Zio Michel in Cliffside Park, is the new executive chef at Riverside Manor, the monstrous restaurant in Paterson that opened last year to a 1-star rating.

Daniele has converted the menu to be wholly Italian and said he plans more seasonal specials.

If you're curious about his potential, this was his 3 1/2-star review from Barbara Hoffman in The Record in August 1994:

It is the custom of the country not to stray from one's plate: The only ones with special dispensation are small children and restaurant reviewers.

Should you go to Michel's Ristorante, pretend you're one of us.

The Englewood restaurant's menu is so extensive - and the food so wonderful - that it's a shame not to sample as much of it as you can. It's best to order it as you would the dishes in a Chinese restaurant, indulging in a little of this, a little of that.

Michel's (pronounced Michael's, with a hard K) is named for its 29-year-old chef, Michel Daniele, who spent the last 14 years cooking around. (His chief mentor, he says, is Joseph DeCrescenzi, better known as Sonny D.)

Danielehas a wonderful way with vegetables - his baby string beans practically melt in your mouth - and he can turn an ugly, intractable thing like conch into a tender bit of business. His first solo venture was Zio Michel in Cliffside Park, his hometown. A small, BYOB storefront, it's drawn big crowds ever since it opened two years ago.

Michel's, which debuted in May (the "Grand Opening" banner flying across it has begun to fray) is as dazzling as Zio Michel's - now in the hands of another Sonny D disciple - is not. It's big, modern, and glitzy, with three dining rooms and lots of mirrors. The staff - in teal bow ties that match the linens - replenishes silverware with every course; naturally, there's valet parking.

When Michel's is crowded, which is often, it's hard to hear anything over the happy chatter and clinking of forks and knives. So it was surprising to return one Monday for lunch and be serenaded by Frank Sinatra over a sound system I hadn't known existed. (Friday nights, a singer and keyboard player perform music from the last five decades.)

To start with, the exuberantly named "mozzarella fantasia" ($7.95) is easily big enough for two, the snowy slabs of cheese nestled against red, green, and yellow roasted peppers, slickly grilled slices of zucchini, sweet young string beans, and sun-dried tomatoes. The scungilli salad ($6.95) was so artfully carved up, you couldn't recognize it for the conch it was. It came on romaine lettuce with olives and bits of celery, all of it lightly oiled and garlicky.

Cipolla alla parmiggiana ($5.95) arrived in a crock, as would any other onion soup. But this was better, sweetened with sherry and topped with a mixture of provolone and mozzarella.

On any given day, Michel's offers a dozen pastas, the ethereal gnocchi ($13.95) among them. On occasion, there's angel hair with Maryland crab meat: back-fin crab, the finest kind. It arrives, as it should, in the barest of tomato sauces, obscuring nothing, embellishing all.

Should the yellowtail snapper surface again, snap it up. It was a special one day at lunch ($18.95), and arrived moist, succulent, and slathered with shiitake mushrooms and garlic.

Lobster tails fra diavolo ($20.95) was as diabolically hot as the name - almost insufferably hot, a three-alarm diavolo. (It has a milder counterpart, made with marinara sauce.) With the lobster came clams and mussels, all of them cooked to a turn. The only dish that seemed less than the sum of its parts was the rack of lamb ($22.95), the eight small chops looking marooned on a vast white plate, save for a little garni of broccoli. Some chops were moister than others, and here and there were fat and gristle. Fortunately, those string beans came with them, too.

Michel's has an extensive wine list, the Italian bottles divided by regions. Prices begin at $12 for a bottle of Vendange zinfandel, soaring to $150 for Cristol. An $18 bottle of Vernacchia di San Gimignano, a fruity white, proved delightful.

"Look at the prices on these desserts," the diners at the next table muttered. Well, yes, $9.50 for a waffle with zabaglione seems pricey, but less so if you share it, as three of us did. (Heaped as it was with vanilla ice cream, slivered strawberries, whipped cream, and powdered sugar, it was not the sacrifice it sounds, the waffle still warm under it all.)

Along with the ricotta cheesecake and chocolate mousse cake, Daniele also makes the sorbets (lemon, orange, pineapple, and coconut among them), which arrive in the hollowed shells of the fruit from which they sprang ($5.95). Espresso and cappuccino come both decaf and regular; herbal tea surfaced in the form of a mint tea bag in a cup of hot water: For $2, one expects a wider choice of teas, if not a sterling silver samovar.

For a restaurant that justifiably prides itself on service - you should have seen how prettily one waiter divided, spooned, and served that angel hair pasta - Michel's might handle leftovers better, presenting them as you're ready to leave, instead of leaving them to sit there during dessert. And it's always wise to recite the price, along with the ingredients, of the specials. (At lunch one day, there was a $10 variation in veal dishes.)

But these are quibbles. Talk softly and keep your forks flying: This is food worth sharing, and savoring.

Comments

[Udse]

He looks a bit like Chef Ettore Boiardi.

http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/gallery-view?advertiser=BOY%25AR%25DEE

[michelle]

His cooking is AMAZING!!!!!!